


he's the giggle at a funeral

by manya



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Exchange, Alternate Universe, Humor, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nicky is trying his best, aaron and neil are study buddies, andrew is a hopeless gay, except it's not technically a funeral i guess, inappropriate funeral shenanigans, tilda is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 21:10:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16940790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manya/pseuds/manya
Summary: “Ooooooh.” Nicky said, eyes suddenly bright and interested. “A boy? A boy you like?”“I literally cannot stand anything he does.” Andrew is quick to correct. “It won’t work, anyway. He thinks I’m a freak.”“Well, first impressions have never been your forte.” Aaron said snidely, obviously thinking of their own disastrous first meeting.“And how the fuck was inviting him to watch your mother’s cremation supposed to disprove that first impression?”“Ourmother’s cremation ceremony.”





	he's the giggle at a funeral

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CasTheButler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasTheButler/gifts).



> this is my gift for soft-ravenclaw-apollo for the aftg winter exchange !! does it fit the winter theme? barely !!!
> 
> it's written for the prompt "i literally cannot stand anything he does", and it really ran away from me lol. hope you enjoy !! it's based on my friend's grandad's funeral, which was an unholy mess from start to finish for many reasons !

The back room of the funeral parlour was uncomfortably cool, and the faint smell of old perfume and musty carpet hung stale in the air. Andrew’s hands had gone ghostly pale and stiff some time ago; he had to keep clenching and unclenching his fingers to encourage the blood flow back into his fingertips.

The body lay in a casket in the middle of the room.

“She looks well.” Nicky commented. He and Aaron were standing facing the casket, gazing down solemnly at the greyish body. Andrew was slouched against the wall, bored.

Andrew’s brows knitted together as he considered his reply. It was an inane comment. He knew that Nicky also knew it was an inane comment. He couldn’t judge him for making an attempt to break the thick, uncomfortable silence that stretched between them, but still. “She looks like shit.”

“ _Andrew_.” Nicky hissed, casting an uncomfortable glance at Aaron.

It was true. The car crash had knocked her most of her teeth out, and her face had caved in like a skull into the empty space. Rigor mortis had set in before the undertaker had gotten the chance to insert false teeth, and they were unable to open the mouth without breaking the jaw. Andrew gave an unapologetic shrug. 

Aaron’s didn’t respond to either of them; his gaze had caught on an unexpected splash of colour nestled into the dour greyness of Tilda’s death suit. “Are they… Nicky, are they rosary beads?”

“Hm?” Nicky followed his gaze. Sure enough, there were a set of blue rosary beads protruding from where they had been interlaced between deathly white hands. “Oh. Looks like it.”

“Well, what the fuck did they give her those for?”

“I think it gives her a sense of, you know. Dignity.” 

“ _Dignity?_ ”

“Yeah.” Nicky seemed to sense that he was wading into dangerous territory, because he changed the subject quickly. “They styled her hair nicely too, don’t you think?”

“They just washed it.”

“It makes her face look slimmer.”

Aaron glanced at him, aghast. “Her face looks slimmer because she’s dead, Nicky.”

“Still.” said Nicky. He was looking at him expectantly. When he said nothing, he looked at Andrew. Met with nothing but a glare and stoney silence, he cast his eyes around the room. “It’s a nice enough place, isn’t it?”

Aaron grit his teeth. “It’s a funeral parlour, and my mother’s corpse is laying cold in a box in front of us.”

Nicky nodded as though that hadn’t quite occurred to him. “Yes, I suppose. Are you going to say anything?”

“What?”

“To Aunt Tilda. I can wait outside, if you like.”

“What the fuck would I have to say to her?”

“Well. If there was anything you felt or thought that you’d maybe like to get off your chest, or maybe if there was anything you weren’t able to tell her in life, you could get it all out now. It could be therapeutic, you know.”

Andrew thought he might be able to hear Aaron’s clenched jaw creak with strain. “I’m not talking to a decaying pile of flesh about my _feelings_.” he said the word like it was a dirty thing. “Who’s paying for this shit, by the way?”

Nicky looked away then. “Your uncle, for the most part.” he said. Both twins noticed his choice of words, his obvious avoidance of the words “my father”. “He left a special allowance for the funeral.”

Aaron stared fixedly at his mother’s shrunken face. “D’you think she did it on purpose?”

“Did what on purpose?”

“This.” he waved a hand in a gesture that encompassed Tilda’s corpse.

“What, died?”

“Yeah,” said Aaron, “I mean, the timing can hardly be a coincidence.”

Nicky and Andrew shared a lingering look. Andrew wondered dispassionately if Aaron was cracking up. It had been years since the twins had seen Tilda; their last contact had been the night Andrew had dragged Aaron from that awful house, bringing him to Nicky’s house in Columbia. The following weeks had been hell, with Aaron’s screams echoing through the house as he detoxed and Andrew pacing and Nicky fretting, but somehow they had pulled through. They had all pulled through. 

Nicky took a deep breath. “If you’re asking me whether I believe that your mother purposely died five years after you left her house, I’m obviously going to say no.”

“Five years _to the day_! The fucker did it on purpose, I swear. And so close to Christmas, too!”

“It’s not good to speak ill of the dead.” Nicky chided, though there wasn’t much force behind it. Andrew knew that Nicky shared his relief that Aaron was allowing himself to _feel_ anger towards his mother; for a considerable amount of time they had bore the brunt of that frustration. It was somewhat gratifying to see it directed where it belonged. They all stared down at the body for another few moments before Nicky spoke again. “I’m worried about you, you know.”

“What? Why?”

“I just mean… you’re terrible at expressing your emotions-”

“I’m not terrible at-”

“- and you’ve always had a difficult relationship with your mother. I just think that now would be a good time to unburden your heart.”

“Unburden my-?”

“I know you haven’t opened the letter she left. Andrew told me.”

Aaron shot his twin a nasty look. Andrew shot Nicky his own nasty look at having been ratted out, but then met Aaron’s scowl head on. Aaron scrubbed a hand roughly over his face. “The woman’s barely gone cold.”

“I think you need to be a little more mature about this.”

Lacking anything else to do and desperate to do something with his hands, Aaron checked the time on his watch and then ran his fingers through his hair. “Where the fuck is Katelyn?” The cremation was due to start at 4pm, and it was nearing five to. It was entirely unlike his girlfriend to be late. He checked his phone, then blew out a breath. “She’ll be here soon.” he paused, and then with an attempt to appear casual that failed worse than anything Andrew had ever seen his twin attempt, he said, “Neil is coming with her.”

It took Andrew a herculean effort not to perk up with interest at that piece of information, although it came with a considerable amount of watered down annoyance. “Why the fuck did you invite _Neil_?”

Aaron attempted to blink innocently at him, which failed almost as horrifically as his attempt to be casual. “What do you mean?”

Neil Josten was Aaron’s red-haired, blue-eyed, long-legged study partner. They shared the same Advanced Statistics class; Neil was sharp-tongued, loud-mouthed, and the most stupidly attractive asshole Andrew had ever had the misfortune of laying his eyes upon. He was also, tragically, the most _oblivious_ asshole Andrew had ever had the misfortune of laying his eyes upon.

“Ooooooh.” Nicky said, eyes suddenly bright and interested. “A boy? A boy you like?”

“I literally cannot stand anything he does.” Andrew is quick to correct. He crosses his arms and glares at the side of Tilda’s very dead head, his chin jutting out stubbornly. “It won’t work, anyway. He thinks I’m a freak.”

“Well, first impressions have never been your forte.” Aaron said snidely, obviously thinking of their own disastrous first meeting.

“And how the fuck was inviting him to watch your mother’s cremation supposed to disprove that first impression?”

“ _Our_ mother’s cremation ceremony.”

“Why the fuck do you think that’s better?”

The sound of muffled footsteps sounded as Aaron began to reply, and then the door opened and Neil and Katelyn spilled in. Katelyn’s hair was scraped into an elegant little bun, and her eyes strayed immediately to the casket. Neil was wearing a shirt and actual proper pants. Andrew’s mouth tasted coppery. When Aaron gave him a suggestive dig in the arm, he had to suppress the urge to murder him. Instead he opened his mouth to greet them, but all that came out was “You’re late.” He could see Nicky wince from the corner of his eye.

Apparently choosing to ignore him, Katelyn stepped up closer to the casket and gazed down at Tilda’s body. “She looks… peaceful.”

Andrew squinted at the corpse. He could understand Aaron’s earlier frustration with Nicky now, at least. “She just looks dead.”

Nicky stepped forwards and gave Katelyn a hug, taking the ignoring approach to Andrew as well. “Thank you for coming, it means so much to all of us-”

Andrew was about to scoff and interject when he felt a presence step up beside him. It was Neil, of course, because the only thing that could possibly make this day any better would be humiliating himself in front of the most attractive person he’d ever met. He forced himself to stare straight ahead so that he wouldn’t notice the way Neil’s hair looked like it was glowing in the harsh light of the room, or the way his blue shirt complimented his eyes, or the way that his dress pants were the most fitted item of clothing he had ever seen him wear. Damn it, it wasn’t working and he was checking out his brother’s hot study partner in the back room of a funeral parlour in front of his mother’s dead body. The fact that this was _Aaron’s idea_ in the first place made him want to burst into hysterical laughter.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” murmured Neil, tilting his head down slightly. Even his _voice_ was stupidly attractive.

“Mm,” said Andrew intelligently. 

“I remember how it felt when my mother died. If you need someone to talk to…” he trailed off, and then cleared his throat and shot Andrew a wry smile. Andrew had to fight back a full-body twitch in response. “Well, I’m here if you need to talk it out. It can help.”

“It wasn’t much of a loss.” Andrew said, and then mentally kicked himself. Neil had undoubtedly heard the rumours about him; that he was a psychopath, a sociopath, that he’d kill anyone that crossed him without blinking. The last one wasn’t all that far from the truth, but that wasn’t the point. Neil had _definitely_ heard the rumours, because everyone had, and even if he hadn’t believed them up until now what the fuck would he think after Andrew had announced that he didn’t care for the woman who had given birth to him right in front of her corpse?

But Neil just shrugged. His eyes were watching Andrew’s; he hadn’t looked at the body once. “Sometimes it isn’t.” he said, and then looked over at where Katelyn was holding Aaron tight to her chest.

Seized by the urge to say something, to keep Neil’s pretty blue eyes on him, Andrew blurted “Thanks for coming.”

“Oh,” Neil looked back at him and smiled a little. The scars along his cheekbone visibly tugged a little at the movement. “It’s no problem.”

When the mortician and the crematory operator came in, Andrew felt relieved. He was too warm from embarrassment, despite the cold temperature of the room, and he was ready to get this whole awful ordeal over with. It felt like Tilda’s body was mocking him from the casket with her freshly washed hair and those goddamn rosary beads.

* * *

After the cremation was over, the five of them ended up in Sweetie’s with a veritable mountain of dessert spread across the table. Tilda’s urn sat on a chair at the head of the table and earned them several odd looks from fellow diners and wait staff alike. Andrew had suggested tossing it out the window of the car on the way over, but had been vehemently vetoed by his cousin and brother. 

“So,” began Katelyn conversationally. “What made you guys go for cremation?”

“Wanted to stop her from coming back.” 

“Andrew.” Nicky chuckled nervously, glancing at the urn as though expecting some kind of retribution.

“It was the cheapest option.” Aaron amended, squeezing his girlfriend’s hand and smiling softly at her. She smiled back, sickeningly sweet. Andrew longed to punch them both.

“It seemed like the best choice,” Nicky said between spoons of ice cream cheesecake, “I think Aunt Tilda would have wanted cremation. It didn’t seem right to bury her. Besides, the cremation allowed for a quiet, intimate farewell. It seemed appropriate.” he noticed the glares he was receiving from the twins and admitted, “Also, it was like, significantly cheaper than burial.”

“My mother was cremated when she died,” Neil spoke up, swirling his melting mint chocolate chip ice cream with a spoon, “In a manner of speaking.”

Before Andrew could begin to pick apart that cryptic statement, Nicky blurted, “When are you going to open the letter?”

Furious, Aaron glared at him even as Katelyn asked “You haven’t opened it yet?” in a tone of disappointed surprise.

“What letter?” asked Neil, looking between the three of them. When he saw Andrew looking at his melting ice cream he pushed it towards him in offering.

“Their mother left a letter addressed to them with strict instructions for them to open it when she died.” Katelyn finally put down her spoon, having finished demolishing her dessert. Andrew had to admit he was impressed at her progress. “You really should open it, Aaron. It could be important.”

“How important could it be? She’s dead.” Andrew snorted. He ignored the triple-scowl he received from Aaron, Nicky, and Katelyn and began to lay into Neil’s ice cream.

“It could be a will.” Nicky piped up.

“Whatever it is, I’ll open it _later_. There’s no point getting onto me about it, it’s not like I’ve been carrying it around with me.” Aaron grumbled.

Nicky gave a sheepishly nervous giggle. Recognising that laugh as the one that meant Nicky had done something they would Not Be Happy About, the twins turned reflexively at once to glare hard at him. “What the fuck have you done?” Aaron demanded.

Still looking hopelessly sheepish, Nicky reached into his suit jacket and drew out a sealed envelope. “It was just in case you changed your mind!” he rushed to explain, his words almost drowned out by Aaron’s annoyed groan.

“Let Andrew open it.” he said stubbornly.

“ _I_ don’t want anything to do with it.” Andrew argued quickly, leaning away from the envelope in disgust. “Besides, _you’re_ the one she raised. _You_ open it.”

Aaron’s mouth fell open. “I can’t believe you just used that as an argument.”

“Neil can open it!” Nicky suggested excitedly. When he was faced with Andrew’s furious glare, he explained swiftly, “He’s the only one here that has a bit of distance from the situation!”

Very hesitantly, Neil took the proffered envelope. Before he made any move to open it, his eyes moved to Andrew and he gave him a significant, questioning look. It wasn’t until Andrew gave a jerky shrug of one shoulder that he opened the envelope. The quiet at the table was swollen and expectant, unbroken except for the chatter of the other patrons in the diner. Andrew was trying and failing pretty pathetically at not looking at Neil; because of that, he noticed when Neil’s neutral expression faltered.

“What?” snapped Aaron, having noticed too.

Neil’s mouth opened, then closed. His face was doing a complicated thing where it seemed to be fighting to display at least four different emotions all at once. “Um,” he said, when his face had finally settled down. He looked chagrined. “I think maybe it would be better if you read-”

Andrew plucked the letter out of Neil’s unresisting hands, noticing the way their fingers brushed even in his distraction. He scanned the content of the letter. Then he scanned it again. He started to laugh. “Oh. Oh, that’s just perfect.” Apparently unable to stand being in the dark, Aaron leaned over the table and ripped the paper out of Andrew’s grip. Andrew noticed that Aaron’s tie had dipped into the remains of Katelyn’s cake, and now had a large chocolate stain covering it. He began to laugh harder.

As Aaron’s eyes flickered over the words of his mother’s letter, his mouth dropped open in horror. “Fuck.” he managed to say.

“What is it?” Katelyn asked softly, laying a hand on his shoulder. Andrew was still laughing.

“She-” Aaron put the letter in his lap and threw his head back to stare at the ceiling. “It’s a letter from mom, with her funeral instructions. It’s really detailed. It’s… she wanted ham and cheese sandwiches served, and a big ceremony, and-”

“Tell them the best part.” Andrew watched his brother, now making an attempt to stifle his cackling. “Don’t hold back.”

Nicky was looking from Aaron to Andrew to Neil, understanding dawning on his face. “Oh no.” he said, looking sickly.

Aaron turned the paper around and pointed at the bottom of the letter; **DO NOT CREMATE ME**

Andrew giggled again. “She wanted a big old burial.” he shook his head mockingly. “What a delusional woman.”

The force with which Aaron’s forehead hit the table rattled the cutlery, and he groaned loudly. “Fucking hell.” When he lifted his head, there was a red mark on his forehead. “Well, fuck, what do we do with the ashes?”

“Flush them.” Andrew suggested, ignoring Nicky’s scandalised gasp.

Aaron was looking at the letter again. He sighed, then ran his hands through his hair so that it stood up in disorganised clumps. “Damn.”

When Nicky opened his mouth, looking as though he were about to offer his own brand of comfort, Andrew stood from the table, “I’m going for a smoke.” he said by way of explanation, before marching out of the diner. 

The air outside hit him hard, bitterly cold, and he regretted coming outside almost instantly. He weathered it, too stubborn to retreat as he fumbled with his cigarettes and lighter with numb fingers. The door opened behind him, but he didn’t look up until someone stopped in front of him.

Neil held a hand out expectantly. It was almost second-nature for Andrew to comply, placing a lit cigarette carefully between Neil’s scarred outstretched fingers. Neil smiled slightly at him, but he didn’t raise the cigarette to his mouth; instead, he took a deep, slow inhale of the smoke and leaned against the wall next to Andrew. “Aren’t you cold out here?”

“No.” said Andrew stubbornly. He had answered far too quickly, and his cheeks had gone pink from the cold (and it was definitely from the cold, he told himself firmly, watching Neil’s small smile). “If it’s so cold, why did you follow me out here?”

Neil’s expression turned a little wry. “Nicky wants to bury the ashes, but Aaron wants to return them to the funeral home and make them keep them. They’re arguing about it now.”

“Mm.” Andrew turned away and looked out across the parking lot, forcing the feeling of disappointment down deep. What a stupid thing to feel, after all. Neil hadn’t ever shown any desire to spend more time with him than necessary; even now he had only followed Andrew out to escape an awkward situation, and Andrew couldn’t fault him that.

The sky outside was a deep, ugly grey. The winter wind whipped at them, but neither moved. “It looks like snow.” Neil observed, pointing with his free hand toward the sky.

“Why did you come today?” Andrew blurted, before cursing himself internally. It’s times like these where he realises he’s pretty stupid; always so willing to hurt himself.

“I just really love cremation ceremonies.” Neil said drily. His fingers twitched around the cigarette though, and after a moment he added, “Aaron suggested it. He has Katelyn, and I guess he wanted someone there to support you too.”

“I doubt it.” His brother had never shown any concern about his lack of interpersonal relationships, and he sincerely doubted he would start now. Although, having that said, the very fact that Aaron had actually tried to set him and Neil up (even if the attempt had been utterly tone-deaf) had taken him completely by surprise. He hadn’t really believed it until he had seen Neil with his own eyes, shuffling his way into that goddamn funeral home.

Neil shrugged, but there was a secret smile playing across his face. “Okay.” The silence didn’t last for long, because after a moment Neil asked quietly “I can leave, if you want. If you don’t want me here.”

Andrew clenched his jaw, and turned his head to look back across the parking lot. God, he hated him so much. “I never said that.”

That stupid secret smile lingered across Neil’s lips as he took his first and last drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out against the brick wall behind him. Andrew peered through the window of Sweetie’s; Aaron and Nicky were still arguing, with lots of expressive hand gesturing. Katelyn looked distinctly uncomfortable. Andrew blew out an annoyed breath, which swirled around his face in a cloud of condensation. “We should just flush the ashes down the toilet and be done with it.”

“What if they clogged the toilet?” Neil’s tone was so innocently curious that he almost made Andrew laugh out loud; not a manic giggle or a disparaging snort, but a real laugh built from good humour. He nearly bit his tongue trying to swallow it down.

“Good point,” Andrew agreed when he had managed to wrestle his facial expression into submission, “That would be cruel to the toilet.”

Neil turned his smile on him, and Andrew had to look away _again_ because it was damn near blinding. Neil said, “I hope I didn’t make today awkward for you.”

“You think _you_ made it awkward for _me_? My brother tried to set you up with me at his mother’s cremation ceremony, and you think you were the one that made it awkward?”

“Well, I didn’t mind.” Neil shrugged jerkily. The flush spreading across his face was from more than the cold.

Andrew usually felt fairly confident in his own intelligence, so it took him a rather embarrassing length of time to fully understand what Neil meant. He swallowed thickly, feeling as though his tongue had swollen in his mouth. His expression was still neutral though, so at least his image was preserved even _slightly_. “Really.”

“Really.”

 _God, he’s the worst_ , Andrew thought, scowling at him. “We could hang out somewhere outside of a funeral home sometime.” The words came out almost startlingly normal, considering his heart was beating so erratically it felt as though it were about to leap up his throat and into his mouth.

“Aren’t we doing that now?” Neil smiled. _Fuck,_ Andrew thought, _He’s trying to flirt._

“Eating cheesecake at a cheap diner with my family with an urn in the spare chair doesn’t count.”

Neil actually laughed at that. _Horrible_ , Andrew thought, watching Neil’s eyes crinkle and his nose scrunch up a little. _Truly awful_.

“It’s not the worst date I’ve been on.” said Neil, which promptly sent Andrew’s mind spinning in several directions at once. Neil _dates_? He had always heard from Renee and Aaron that Neil was staunchly uninterested in just about everyone. Neil thinks that _this_ is a date? Watching Tilda burn and then sitting in Sweetie’s watching Andrew’s family argue over the ashes counts as date-worthy to him? And it’s _not the worst date he’s been on?_

Andrew checked his watch mockingly. “You know, I don’t think we have time to even begin unpacking that.”

“We should organise to do it another day, then.”

What the _fuck?_ What was happening? Andrew just looked at him for several long moments, before eventually saying, “There’s a tea shop two blocks away from campus.”

“I know it.” said Neil agreeably.

“We could go. Tomorrow.” 

“Yes.” said Neil, a ridiculously pleased grin playing along his lips.

Before they could say anything else, the door to Sweetie’s was pushed open and Aaron stormed out, closely followed by Katelyn. Nicky trotted after them, holding the urn and looking guilty. Behind them, the manager of the diner ushered them out with shooing motions.

Andrew’s eyes tracked over the dusty stain on the front of Aaron’s shirt, and then over the grey in Nicky’s hair. “Hey, I think you’ve got a bit of Tilda on you.”

Aaron scowled ferociously at him, until Nicky piped up “Aaron started it!” and then his glare was turned on his cousin.

“Please don’t come back here again.” the manager said from the door, before pulling it closed with a dramatic flourish of his hands.

Andrew glared. “Did you get us banned from Sweetie’s? For throwing human remains at each other?”

“Aaron started it.” said Nicky again, apparently oblivious to how close to death he was. He shuddered dramatically. “I have bits of dead body in my hair!”

“They’re just ashes.” Neil pointed out pragmatically. His tone suggested that he had once had bits of actual dead body in his hair, and that ashes were a much more preferable option and that Nicky should really know this.

“I’m covered in my mother, Neil.” Aaron scowled at him.

Thankfully, before that line of conversation could be continued Aaron’s phone rang. As he picked it up, the group started meandering towards the car. The sky was a grey so deep it looked almost deep blue; it felt like it was about to open up on them at any moment.

“Yeah.” Aaron was saying. “Yeah, that was us. What? No, we got- What? No, but we have-” he whirled around, almost causing Nicky to drop the urn. “Holy shit. What the fuck do you mean? Then _who_ -? Right. Okay. Fine. We’re on the way.” He stuffed the phone in his pocket, gaze still fixed on the urn. “We have to go back to the funeral home.”

“Why?” Katelyn asked.

There was a long pause, and Andrew felt the answer coming long before Aaron opened his mouth to say it. “We took the wrong urn.”

There was yet another stretch of silence as they all digested this information.

Then Nicky screeched, “ _Then who is in my hair?!_ ”

“Come _on_ , the family of whoever this was is at the funeral home waiting!”

As his family raced to the car, Andrew looked at Neil again. “This is what you’re getting yourself into.” he said, using a hand gesture to attempt to encompass the events of the day and then motioning to himself.

Neil stepped forwards, and their knuckles brushed. “At least I won’t be bored.”

Above them, the sky started sprinkling snow.

**Author's Note:**

> [talk to me on tumblr !! ](http://andrewminyarid.tumblr.com/)


End file.
